


A Nocturnal Upon St Lucy's Day

by the_alchemist



Category: The Borgias (2011)
Genre: Anger, Forgiveness, Gen, Guilt, Mountains, Sharing Body Heat, Sharing a Bed, Wolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-18
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-05 02:42:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1088636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_alchemist/pseuds/the_alchemist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Micheletto has killed his lover because of Cesare, Lucrezia has killed her husband because of Cesare, but their reactions could not be more different: guilt, shame and self-hatred on the one hand; anger on the other.</p>
<p>They find one another the longest, darkest night, when the year turns from winter towards summer. But will it also be a turning point in their understanding of themselves and what has happened?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Nocturnal Upon St Lucy's Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OpheliaRising](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OpheliaRising/gifts).



> Thanks to beta readers S and R, to everyone involved in making The Borgias awesome, and to John Donne for the title.
> 
> Warnings for mild gore and references to incest.

_In the month of December, in the year 1500, the Lady Lucrezia Borgia embarked on a pilgrimage to the Hermit of Forli. Dressed in the garb of a country maid, she was accompanied only by one gentlewoman. She informed no-one of her departure. In the village at the foot of the mountain, she instructed the gentlewoman to wait behind and to send for help only if she should be gone longer than two days. This happened on the Feast of St Lucy, the shortest day of the year._

* * *

_He killed my husband._ There. If it could be contained in four little words, could it really be so terrible? If Lucrezia would not choose to die, then she must choose to live and be happy: the other choice was no choice at all.

_No. I killed my husband._ Lucrezia watched the face in the ornate mirror twitch into a frown, and saw her tears before she knew they were coming. Her fist clenched. She had been so close to forgiveness.

“Lucrezia? Please.” It was him. She ran to her chamber door and locked it, then leant against it, chest heaving, as though her body could add strength to oak and iron.

She would not speak to him. No, not a word. “Go away!” she shouted.

* * *

Lucrezia’s silks rustled as she hurried through the Vatican, past cardinals and courtesans, servants and princes, visitors from every part of Europe and beyond. She heard snatches of conversation as she went. “A holy man in the mountains near Forli,” drawled Cardinal something-or-other’s elegant mistress, reclining in a cushioned alcove. “They say he performs miracles,” said a wrinkled old Franciscan, half running to keep up with his companion, a dour-looking priest. “They say,” giggled one chambermaid to another, while failing to polish a side table, “pilgrims have been struck dead for approaching him in their impurity.”

She found the place without difficulty, knocked on the door and went straight in. “Did you bring them?” she asked.

The gentlewoman curtsied and gestured to the things on the bed. An unbleached shift; a woollen kirtle, dyed reddish brown with madder; woollen stockings, a headclout, a sturdy felt bonnet, a thick cloak, a peasant’s boots and ... “What are these, Maria?”

“Pattens, my lady, to help you walk on snow.”

Lucrezia touched the coarsely woven wool of the kirtle and smiled at the novelty of it.

* * *

The Apennines had a desolate and thirsty beauty: stone and snow; the light too harsh, the shadow too deep. Lucrezia was afraid – not of wolves or _banditti_ , though Maria had begged her not to go on account of these – but simply because of its bleak grandeur.

The snow had not settled on the lower part of the mountain, and she made good progress, trying to mediate on forgiveness. _God’s mercy is immense as the mountains are immense: mine must ... be as a foothill to it? No._

_Flow into it like a rivulet. No._

_Draw strength from it like a flower from the hillside?_

_Maybe ..._

It began to get steeper, and Lucrezia relied more on the staff Maria had given her. “My father carved it from a sapling,” she had said. Maria was a local girl. Perhaps some of the sheep were her family’s.

Though she walked a long way before she allowed herself to rest, having done it once, she found herself stopping again and again, sitting on a rock or on the withered grass, no longer meditating on God but on the ache in her calves, the chafing of her wet woollen stockings, and on the bitter cold.

Saying goodbye to Maria, she had gazed up at the snowline in anticipation. _I’ll be nearly there, then. It will be like another world: lofty, white and clean._ But walking in the snow was clumsy and precarious: she stumbled every few steps, she hated the cold, and felt a renewed fear. _Even the ground here is hostile to me. Maria was right, I never should have come._ She was climbing with her hands as much as her feet now, and her kid gloves were worn right through.

“This is a fool’s errand.” She said the words aloud, suddenly longing for the sound of a human voice. _Why do I do this? Are there not anchorites and holy men in Rome?_ And the other reason why she had come now felt like madness, the wildest of speculations.

(From a rock near the peak of the mountain, the hermit watched the pilgrim ascend, climbing now with hands as well as feet. It was a woman, he saw, not from any of her features, but from the shape of her skirts as they billowed out behind her. For a moment, she looked like ... but of course that was impossible, mad speculation. Had the fever returned? He crouched back into his shelter. The traps would see her off, and if they didn’t, he had his crossbow.)

Lucrezia watched in horror as the rocks tumbled down into the abyss below. She should be more careful where she put her hands and feet. _I could die here._ She remembered what the chambermaid had said: pilgrims have been struck dead for approaching him in their impurity. It was almost as though that tempting, treacherous handhold had been placed there deliberately. But why would a holy man do such a thing? Unless of course– She cried out as a crossbow bolt flew past her ear, and into the air behind her.

“Micheletto!” she shouted, suddenly sure. “Micheletto, it’s me, Lucrezia!”

She scrambled over the final rock, and there he was, frowning slightly, not surprised, but a little inconvenienced. His expression was so very Micheletto that she laughed, then, feeling self-conscious, put both hands over her mouth, but that only made her laugh more. “Sorry,” she said through the laughter, but then her vision went black, she felt her knees buckle, and she fainted.

* * *

Lucrezia awoke to find herself lying in a makeshift shelter made out of evergreen branches, still bristling with their fragrant needles. But neither they nor the woodsmoke quite masked a smell of sewage and rotting vegetation ( _a city smell_ , she thought, _it doesn’t belong_ ). Outside, she saw a fire, and someone moving about.

It took her a few moments to remember what had happened. “Micheletto?” she called.

“My lady?” He came to the open end of the shelter and squatted down, opposite her.

“How long did I faint for?”

“Not long,” said Micheletto. “A few minutes.”

“You’re unwell,” she said, noticing then how thin he was, and how pale.

“Why did you come here?”

“On a pilgrimage.” She hesitated. “To see you.”

“Am I a saint now?” he said, with no laughter in his voice. “Or a sacred relic?”

She smiled, and half sat up. “They talk of you in the Vatican. ‘The Hermit of Forli’, so holy that none may approach his presence and live.”

“I would be alone,” he said, then turned and went to the fire. “I’ve made you a hot posset, my Lady.” He ladled something into a wooden bowl. “Then I will take you back to the village.”

 “It’s too late,” said Lucrezia, gesturing towards the darkening sky. “It’s the shortest day today.” She paused. “My name day.”

Micheletto frowned as he handed her the bowl and squatted in the entrance again. “Tomorrow then,” he said. The wind did not whistle but thinly screamed around the rocks and shrubs.

“Tomorrow, if you will,” said Lucrezia, sipping the hot liquid. She tasted rosehip there, and honey. “It’s good,” she said. “Is there none for you?”

“I only have one bowl. No cups or glasses.”

“Then we must share,” said Lucrezia.

* * *

They sat facing one another beneath the shelter, both cross-legged, and Lucrezia arranged the cloak across both their laps. They passed the steaming bowl of possett between them. The cold made her face and fingers numb, and her shoulders ache. She noticed them how thin and ragged Micheletto’s clothes were. Worse than a Roman beggar.

“Why did you come here?” said Lucrezia.

“To be alone, my Lady” said Micheletto, taking the bowl as she offered it to him.

Lucretia said nothing, but watched him drink.

He looked back at her steadily, then handed back the bowl.

“He is why I came here too,” she said finally lowering her eyes. “I heard,” she began, then stopped. “I heard he made you kill your friend.” She didn't say "lover", though she had heard that too.

The light was dimming fast, but she could see he had become even paler. “And you forgave him,” she said.

“ _Forgave_ him?” he said, this time responding at once.

“I want to know how you did it,” said Lucrezia.

Micheletto laughed. “It is he who had the grace to forgive me, my lady. I betrayed him.”

“And you sent yourself here as penance, yes?”

He did not answer. Now the sun was gone, Lucrezia was colder than she had ever been before, but the pain and discomfort were not – as she had hoped – purifying. Instead they made her irritable. “He treated you like his dog,” she said.

“It was my honour,” said Micheletto.

Lucrezia turned away from him. “I used to think it takes a Borgia to love a Borgia, but it is not so. I will be no man’s dog.”

Micheletto inclined his head a little, then handed her the bowl. She drained the last few drops. “Oh Micheletto!” The words burst from her like a sob. “How I wish I could love as you love.”

“How do I love?” said Micheletto. “I who am darkness and death?”

“Eternally.”

He smiled briefly. “Nothing is eternal.”

* * *

There was no question of them sleeping separately. Lucrezia feared that without the warmth of another body near here she would freeze to death. She wondered how Micheletto lived, but then she heard him cough and looked at him again, and knew that he would not, or not for much longer, if he stayed here. She laid her head on his chest (how thin he was), and felt him pull the cloak over them both, then put his arms around her.

She had thought at first they might make love, and was curious about what it would be like. Would he be aggressive, she wondered, or earnest and solicitous? She imagined his desire to have an edge of hunger to it, almost desperation, and that piqued her interest. But he did not initiate anything, and when she stroked his thigh he made no response. So she took comfort from his touch, but nothing else. _Love without lust, like a brother._ She smiled and inwardly corrected herself. _Like another brother might have been._

She had thought she would find it hard to sleep out here, but she was tired to the bone, and drowsiness soon began to fall. But she was not yet asleep when something startled her. “What’s that?” She sat up, heart beating fast. A second sound – similar, but distinct – had joined the wind’s unearthly moan.

“A wolf,” said Micheletto. “Don’t worry, my Lady. The fire will keep it away.”

“Mmm.” She settled down again. She felt safe with Micheletto, and quickly found again the pathway to sleep.

The she awoke with a jolt. “Listen.” And the wind carried it to them again: a human voice calling for help, and then the wolf again, this time growling and snapping.

She sat up and turned to Micheletto. “We must do something,” she said.

“Yes,” he replied. “We must be thankful it’s not us.”

She stared at his dark silhouette on the ground. “You can’t mean that,” she said, pulling the cloak from him and crawling towards the shelter’s entrance. “Come on. Where’s your crossbow?”

“My Lady,” said Micheletto, following her out and hauling a big log onto the fire. “The world is filled with death. To fight against it would be to fight the tide.”

“But I cannot bear to hear him die.” She clenched her teeth. “No,” she said. “I _will_ not bear to hear him die.” She bent and picked up a branch which had one end in the fire, then turned and listened for where they were.”

“My Lady–”

But then they heard the voice again, much closer now: “Lucrezia!”

And before Lucrezia could even register that she knew and that he was in danger, Micheletto was running towards it, crossbow in hand.

Lucrezia followed as quickly as she could – which wasn’t very – picking her way forward by the flickering light of her burning brand.

Then the moon came out from behind a cloud and she saw them. Cesare scrambling up a tree, the wolf – there only seemed to be one – jumping up and snarling. She heard the dull thwack of the crossbow firing, and then saw the wolf twist to bit at its own flank, yelping in pain. But that only lasted a second; then it was at Cesare again, and caught his foot in its jaws. At that, Lucrezia screamed and felt herself running forward brandishing the branch. Her scream turned into a battle cry, and to her amazement, the wolf started backing off. Then there was another crossbow bolt, and it fell, and Micheletto was on it, using a stone to beat its head to a bloody mess.

“There may be others ...” said Lucrezia, looking round.

Micheletto shook his head. “No, my Lady. I have seen her before. She is a lone wolf.”

“She?” Lucrezia looked at the heap of pale fur, limbs splayed from death throes, and felt a sudden burst of sympathy.

* * *

Micheletto held Cesare half-reclining in his lap while Lucrezia bandaged his foot. As well as half a dozen or so small puncture wounds, the wolf had torn away a narrow strip of flesh from the ankle, and in one place, Lucrezia saw the pale glint of bone.

“I thought it had been much worse,” she said. _And hoped it had been much better._ “I don’t suppose you have any garlic, Micheletto? Or honey?”

Micheletto shook his head.

“Do you not eat it with locusts, Micheletto?” said Cesare, then groaned in pain.

“No,” said Micheletto, shifting position to hold Cesare closer.

“Dioscorides said earwax,” Lucrezia continued. “Although I think that was for human bites.”

* * *

It was good to feel his body next to hers again, and two cloaks between three was a lot warmer than one between two.

“Lucrezia–“ Cesare said, but stopped, gasping. Lucrezia felt his spasm of pain physically. Her foot tingled with it, and her chest tightened. “I’m sorry,” he said at last.

Lucrezia kissed him. “Hush, my love.” She searched throughout her mind and soul and could not find a trace of the anger that had driven her to this place.

She felt Cesare turn, and turned with him, her front to his back.

“Micheletto,” she heard him say. “Please, come back with me. And stay, I mean. Without you I’m ... I’m ...”

“Your Grace.” His tone was – as always – unreadable. But Lucrezia reached out, and over Cesare’s hips, Micheletto’s hand found hers, and outside the sky glowed with a prophecy of dawn.


End file.
